


Stranger Things Have Happened

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, College/University, First Meetings, M/M, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Unilock, University, Viclock, coffee shop AU, nice guy victor trevor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2060289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A forgotten sheet of paper was all it took to start whatever this was. Victor wasn't sure if he should be too thrilled about it, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger Things Have Happened

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redherring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redherring/gifts).



> I'm very sorry if the constant use of the name William annoys you. It annoys me, too, but the narrative called for it.  
> Part of the Viclock Gift Exchange over on Tumblr.

[Cover Art Here](http://www.polyvore.com/stranger_things_have_happened/set?id=130473655)

* * *

 

As Victor grabbed his cup of coffee, he gave a small nod of the head to the barista, smiling. "Thank you," he said distractedly, drawing out the syllables as he gathered a bunch of paperwork together.

He did a pretty impressive balancing act back to his table, dropping a clipboard and a bunch of files rather unceremoniously next to his laptop.

It was already going on nine, he'd noticed. Pushing back his hair, he sat, preparing himself for a long night. He nursed his warm cup of coffee in one hand as he sifted through files with another.

There was a lot of medication to look through, a lot of names and patients to organise, and a lot of double-checking with dosages and allergic reactions and such to document properly.

So there he sat, going through tedious paperwork, occasionally making some corrections in red ink, and all together damning himself for not doing it sooner. At least the place was relatively quiet for a coffee shop, with only a few other patrons scattered around at tables, tapping away on laptops and sipping at drinks and chatting quietly.

Victor heard the chime of somebody new entering the shop. Then he could've sworn that a storm came rumbling through instead of a person, because it sure as hell sounded like it.

Yet when he looked up, he only found this tall, lanky thing practically sprinting the few feet from the door to the counter all amped-up and frantic, which - if the looks other people had on their faces were any indication of anything - was definitely _not_ normal for university kids around here.

Victor did a double-take at him.

The guy looked familiar, actually, if he swapped out the plaid pyjama bottoms and black t-shirt for nice trousers and a button down. Maybe control the hair a bit more, too, because it currently resembled some sort of tumbleweed.

Victor recognized him from their mandatory English class - well, the few times the guy had bothered to attend it, anyway - and he didn't think he'd ever seen him otherwise.

Or, no, wait, that wasn't entirely true.

The manic energy was also familiar, because now to think of it, Victor _had_ seen him a few other times since the semester started. He never thought anything of it, though. Running in and out of the dorm lounge at random intervals, always carrying this overflowing bag with him, always surgically attached to his phone, and always looking like he was working on ten different things all at once. Because the way Victor saw it, who was he to say something?

He followed the guy's whirlwind back to an empty space, where he sprawled out across the whole tabletop much like how Victor himself had done.

When they made eye contact for a couple of seconds, Victor just automatically pulled a polite smile. The guy scowled back at him, turning his attention down to god knows what he was working on, and drinking - no, _chugging_ \- his coffee along the way.

Somewhat disgruntled, Victor tapped his red pen against a stack of papers.

He ultimately decided to take it as his cue to get back to work, as well.

*********

William. His name was William, Victor had found out.

Admittedly, he had asked around, but that didn't mean a thing. Even if it was all kinds of awkward because he didn't have anything more than casual acquaintances around here, he really didn't regret it at all.

He just found William to be interesting, in that mysterious, ridiculously confusing I-shouldn't-even-care kind of way. It was the allure of the stranger, he supposed.

From then on, Victor decided to visit that coffee shop right off-campus more often.

The two of those things didn't have much correlation, and even so, correlation does not always equal causation. He just preferred to do his work in a less isolated place, a place where it was easier for him to concentrate. That, and he needed the coffee like a car needs fuel.

He noticed that William had started to frequent the coffee shop more and more, too, and Victor didn't dare to question it.

He'd work up the courage to talk to him one of these days. He'd figure out a way; in fact, he was already thinking of several.

He just continued to shoot him friendly smiles whenever they'd catch each other's eye. He limited the amount of times he'd scowled back, at least. He counted that as a personal victory.

*********

When Victor made his way into the coffee shop one unexpectedly warm afternoon, his eyes widened at the sight of a _queue_. The place wasn't ever that popular, yet it was pretty much being overrun with university students on their laptops and milling about and such on this particular day.

He was glad that he had decided to catch up on his classes instead of his job today, honestly. At least his schoolwork was organised.

He fiddled with the strap on his backpack as he took a look around. There were a couple of empty seats, but those would certainly be taken soon, he figured.

It took all of seventeen minutes for him to finally reach the counter, and as soon as he had his regular burning in his hand, he looked around again for any empty tables.

There weren't any, naturally, but Victor was never one without a backup plan.

His eyes scanned the crowd for a familiar face, because all of his wishful thinking aside, the worst that could happen was a no. They seemed to be on friendly enough terms.

William wasn't too terribly hard to spot, now that he was looking for him. The messy tabletop and the usual pristine style of dress and the furious tapping away on his phone was a dead giveaway. He had taken his usual seat near the window, and Victor just had to wonder when he'd gotten there because if _that_ wasn't impressive, then he didn't know what was.

He hadn't looked up from his phone until Victor cleared his throat, standing just a few feet away, hovering awkwardly around the table as he gestured to the chair across from him. "Hey. Mind if I sit here?"

William eyed him up warily, then took a quick inventory of the people around them as if he hadn't noticed the influx of patrons, then shrugged his shoulders. "I guess not."

As Victor sat, the other hurriedly gathered his stuff together, clearing a space for him.

Victor nodded, pulling his books out to make use of his half of the table. "Thanks. I'm Victor, by the way."

The silence that greeted him was all but unexpected. He didn't let it faze him, though. He just uncapped a highlighter and set to work flipping through chapters of his English book, sipping at his coffee, and glancing up at William every so often just to check up on him.

The guy was switching between having his nose buried in his phone, then his multitude of scattered papers, then back to his phone. He'd slowly started to monopolize more and more of the table as he spread the papers out, too, examining them in a way Victor couldn't quite understand.

It was all rather endearing.

Eventually, Victor craned his neck in an exaggerated gesture to maybe catch the other guy's attention. It hadn't worked out like that. He raised an eyebrow at the pages of notes and arrows and random pictures of random things, anyway. "Are you studying? Exams are coming up soon."

"In two months, actually." He hadn't even looked up from his phone.

"It's never too early to revise."

Blue eyes flicked up to him, and the look William gave him just reeked of sardonicism. "I thought you'd be more interesting."

Victor smiled at that, because _wow._ He remained silent for a few minutes, chewing on the end of his highlighter as he looked between William, then his book, then the commotion around them, then back to William.

Eventually, he sighed. "Okay, so tell me, what are you doing?"

"Something a lot more important than revising."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Like clearing an innocent man's name."

Victor wasn't so sure if he wanted to know, but the curiosity was nagging at him. Of course the most articulate thing he could get out was a head tilt and a very, very confused, "I'm sorry?"

"There was this thing with a really gruesome double homicide that he got framed for-"

"What?!"

"-but the man in question was actually on the opposite side of the city hotwiring a car to escape from some guys of whom he owed money to, while-"

"How old are you?"

"- _while the murder was still going on_ , do you usually interrupt people this much?" Victor's mouth snapped shut, then he opened it again to try for some half-thought-out retort. William spoke up over him, "Don't answer that."

He slammed the cap back on his highlighter.

William seemed rather calm as his eyes roamed over Victor, studying him. Then when he started to speak, Victor felt as if he was being flayed open. "You're obviously lonely, that's why you're trying so hard to make conversation with someone who's not too interested. Don't you have friends? Or they're just acquaintances, more likely. You like having people to talk to, but you don't have proper time for them."

Victor's eyes widened, angered. "Yeah, well, I have to make money somehow, right?"

"Speaking of that, you can't be on too good of terms with your parents if you've got a job like the one you do, one that's good enough to pay for a decent amount of tuition and living conditions. You came from a wealthy background, couldn't be more obvious about it if you tried, so parents not being able to afford it is out of the question. You do pharmaceutical work, right? I have very good eyesight," he added in way of explanation, voice infuriatingly monotone.

"Your schoolwork is organised while your work papers are not, I've seen them. What can we make of that? You care for your job, so perhaps it's just a bit too fast paced for you to keep it well-organised, if you're constantly removing and adding papers for different customers and different prescriptions. You could just care more about your lessons, and rightfully so; can't keep the scholarships with poor grades.

"And right now you're running on coffee, a few hours of sleep, and some toast you made yourself this morning. Crumbs are still visible on your shirt."

William pointedly stared down at the book. "And I'm assuming today is one of your days off considering you're doing schoolwork instead. You're a chapter ahead of the lesson, meaning you obviously don't have much time to keep up with the class on a consistent basis. Why is that? Oh right, work, again."

"If you're going somewhere with this..." He trailed off there. Victor's eyebrows were scrunched together, giving the guy in front of him a wary raise of the shoulders, on the defensive. "Wait. Wait wait wait, first, how did you know all that?"

"Obvious. You have it written all over you." Victor gave him a rather exaggerated expression that just screamed what-the-absolute-fuck-are-you-talking-about. "Like I said, I've good eyesight."

"Yeah no kidding," he huffed.

"I guess _I_ can't say much. My work is all I do, too."

"Oh so that's why you're always running around like you're on speed." Victor gestured to the odd paperwork on the other side of the table. William gave him a leveled look. Victor returned it.

Just then, his phone chimed and he glanced down at it.

He'd brightened at whatever message he'd gotten, and Victor could've sworn that he began radiating his excitement.

The mercuriality gave him such whiplash; William had seemed rather bored with the whole proceedings - like it was old hat for him to dish out all that information that Victor had never given him - then suddenly all up and happy and thrilled out of his seat, literally.

He was in that familiar frantic state again as he gathered his stuff together.

Victor watched as William shoved all his work into his bag. Then he swung it onto his shoulder without bothering to zip it closed. "Bye?"

William ignored him. He tipped back the rest of his coffee in one huge gulp, and he left it at the table, along with a single loose leaf page that floated down to the floor, forgotten. Then he was gone with the bell chiming behind him, leaving an utterly offended and confused Victor in his wake.

Well. That hadn't gone as well as he'd hoped.

*********

Victor hadn't seen William in the coffee shop for the next week that followed.

The guy had accidentally left a page of notes behind, with some formulas he'd never seen before and things written in the margins, signed with the initials _W.S.S.H_. He wanted to return it; it looked rather important.

Of course Victor had asked around again, and he'd found that the guy had something of a reputation around campus for doing that _thing_ , for lack of a better term. That thing where he took all the personal aspects of your life and shoved them right back in your face so obnoxiously that the whole world could know.

Victor didn't think poorly of it, actually, but when it was delivered with such blasé it _did_ sort of rub him the wrong way.

Regardless, he carried the page around with him just waiting for when William would finally show up again.

*******  
**

William finally showed up again on a day when the coffee shop was pleasantly devoid of waves upon waves of students. It was more like low-tide at the moment, with only a few other regulars keeping the place lapping at the surface.

The guy took his regular seat, and when their eyes met again, Victor grinned. The sudden giddiness he felt was so unprecedented. He turned down to rummage through the bag on his lap, looking in various folders until he came across that sheet of paper.

He'd almost left without his coffee in the rush, but he reached back and snatched it up at the last second.

As he approached the table, he steadfastly ignored the glowering William was sure to be doing. He dropped all his things in a small free spot on the table that William hadn't yet used, and flashed the guy another wide grin. "Hello there," he said cheerily as he sat down. "How're you today?"

William looked puzzled. It took him a few seconds to ask, "Why are you here?"

"Uhhh, caffeine addiction?"

He pursed his lips, prompting a different explanation.

Victor shrugged his shoulders, then he produced the piece of paper in his hand, waving it to show William. "Just thought I should return this," he said as he handed it over to him, and he got a small nod of the head in recognition as the guy placed it next to the book he had been in the middle of reading.

"Right."

Victor nodded back as he fiddled with the cardboard edge of his coffee cup. "So, what is all of that, anyway?" _That_ being the strange formulas and hastily scribbled notes all over the page, obviously. William just continued on reading his book without a single damn care in the world.

"None of your business." He hadn't even bothered to _sound_ polite.

"O-kay." Victor tilted his head to one side, then the level of sass was through the roof. "And _you're welcome_."

" _Thank you_. For returning my notes, even if I had them memorized."

"Then why write them down."

"To memorize them." They had entered some sort of staring contest by this time, and Victor was determined to be the one to win. "Writing things down improves your memory. Look it up."

"You implied you already had them memorized beforehand."

"Implications don't mean-"

Victor was not about to let this devolve into an argument of nuh-uh's and uh-huh's, so he quickly changed the topic. Smiling, he pointed at the page, cutting him off just as he was about to go on another tirade, probably. "What's up with the initials?"

He looked away in disinterest, and Victor silently congratulated himself for winning the stare-down. "It's my full name." Obvious.

"Well what's your middle name?"

"I've two."

This was getting frustrating. Victor just took a deep breath through his nose, because this actually wasn't going as bad as it could've. "Which one do you like better?"

William's look just then was one of pleasant shock. He paused for a second, then said, "Sherlock."

Victor liked the sound of it. "That's, unique. I think I'm gonna start calling you that. Sherlock."

Newly-proclaimed Sherlock rolled his eyes.

Then they dissolved into silence as Sherlock immersed himself in his book, and Victor idled around on his phone. Some time later after he'd finished the last of his coffee, and had done all the revising he could in one night, and had exhausted every venue of entertainment on his phone, Victor placed it down and adjusted himself in the seat. "What are you even reading? Is it interesting?"

"Very." Sherlock thrummed his fingers atop the pages. "Why do you keep asking questions?"

The answer was immediate and sharp: "Because you seem to know everything about _me_ already, I hear you have a reputation for it. So I want to know about you."

Sherlock let out a long-suffering sigh. "Then deduce it."

"Excu- Excuse me?" That had caught him off-guard, definitely.

"Do what I did the other day and figure it out yourself."

Victor was never one to back down from a challenge, so he put on his bravest face and let his eyes roam over the other. He had a few false starts and fumbled over his words at first, trying to find a decent place to start. "Ehm, well you're busy all the time with, murders? Or whatever it is you do. You're obviously really enthusiastic about it. You haven't gone to class in a while, so when I see you working on something it's _probably_ not schoolwork." Victor scoffed just then. "And you think you're smarter than everyone-"

"And how would you know that?"

"Oh please, I've seen your type before."

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't think you have."

"A very rude, rich white kid who likes to show off his intelligence by, _deducing_ people, to purposefully get those people pissed at him? You think you're above it all, Sherlock, don't even try."

"How do you know I'm rich?"

"Um, the way you dress, the phone you have. And, I don't know, you're going to this expensive as hell school." Sherlock stared at him, and Victor could've sworn that he saw the smallest of smiles beginning to form.

"Close enough."

He took the opportunity to ask, "So now can you tell me about the book?"

Apparently with his mind made up and pleased with Victor's deductive reasonings, he used a finger to keep his place in the book as he showed him the cover. "It's about bees. Currently on the stingers."

"I've been stung by a bee before. A wasp, actually, but same difference."

"No, wrong. Wasps are very different from bees in that they-"

"I know, I know, one's helpful and the other is just there to be an asshole, I am aware." Victor shrugged it off. "But yeah, I remember my mum told me they die when they lose their stingers."

"They do." He paused a beat. "Are you afraid of bees?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"You shouldn't be. They don't sting unless you're trying to kill them."

Victor threw his hands up. "See that's what I never understood! They die either way, now or later, so what's the point?"

Sherlock went quiet after that, presumably to mull it over. Victor found something about it discomforting, the way he was so intent on the question. He'd stopped reading his book, at least, and when he spoke up next it was not without genuine curiosity. "Self preservation instinct, I guess."

Victor hummed his agreement. It made enough sense for him.

"And before you ask about the case I was working on last week: I solved it." Confusion must have been written all over his face, because that wasn't _at all_ something that he was thinking about. Sherlock clarified, "The thing with the stolen car and the double homicide?"

"Oh, right! How did you do that?"

"Easy. I found the actual murderer, and why they'd frame my client in the first place. Then later proved without a doubt he was stealing a car on the opposite side of London instead."

"So..."

"So now I get free meals for two whenever I visit his restaurant."

He raised an eyebrow, because really, "Two in particular?"

"Those were his terms." Sherlock shrugged back noncommittally.

Then all of a sudden it dawned on him, and he couldn't help but fix Sherlock with a look. Perhaps the allure of the stranger worked both ways, he thought with a grin that curled up the corners of his mouth. "What are you implying?"

"Doesn't matter. Like I said, implications don't mean fact," he said as he slowly let his eyes wander over Victor's face.

Oh, now he was just being cheeky. Victor scoffed. "Fine. I'm only there for the free food, anyway."

*******  
**

After that one-off encounter - and a nice lunch at Angelo's a few days after - Victor and Sherlock saw a lot more of each other in that coffee shop, and this time he was willing to admit that it was more of a causation rather than correlation linking them together.

Victor still smiled whenever they sat down together, because at least the guy was capable of providing him with decent, thought-provoking conversation, no matter how rudely he went about it.

Sherlock still tended to glower at him more often than not, but Victor was nothing if not persistent. He'd get Sherlock to smile back eventually.

 


End file.
